Malaysia’s unwillingness to release the full cargo manifest from missing Flight MH370 will hamper the search effort

MALAYSIA’S continuing refusal to share the cargo manifest for Flight MH370 with an Australian-led search and rescue operation will hamper the effort to find the missing aircraft, an aviation expert says.

It is part of mounting concerns about the way in which Malaysian authorities have handled the search for the missing aircraft as it enters its third week.

Strategic Aviation Solutions chairman Neil Hansford said it also suggests Malaysian authorities are not being fully transparent about what the Boeing 777-200ER, which disappeared on March 8 an hour into a journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, was carrying.

“To me, there is no reason why they wouldn’t declare the cargo manifest unless you’ve got something to hide,” he said.

“There is no reason you wouldn’t have given it to AMSA (the Australian Maritime Safety Authority) on the first day of the search.”

AMSA has requested a cargo manifest for Flight M370 from Malaysia Airlines.

The manifest is expected to give the search operation a better idea in identifying objects they spot in the Indian Ocean if they indeed came from the missing plane.

However, the Malaysian authorities to date have refused to release it, insisting the document is with the police who are conducting their own investigation into the cause of the plane’s disappearance.

Cargo ... exactly what was on missing Flight MH370?Source:ThinkStock

“There is certainly no reason why they shouldn’t share a cargo manifest with a legitimate search agency because it will only contribute to the search effort,” Professor Jason Middleton, the head of the school of aviation at the University of New South Wales, said.

“I would have viewed that (not sharing the information) as unusual.”

Professor Middleton said the only reason he could think of for not sharing the information was that something of “Malaysian national interest” was being carried on the aircraft.

“But in that case you could just redact that bit,” he said.

He said the whole investigation had been “totally characterised by innuendo and false data”.

“One of the possibilities is that someone put something on board that wasn’t supposed to be there,” he said.

Australian, Chinese and French satellite images have picked up what might be large pieces of debris from the missing aircraft, which was carrying 239 passengers and crew, while aircraft scanning the area on Saturday spotted what might be pallets and cargo straps.

Mr Hansford said Australia was spending tens of millions of dollars looking for the plane in a remote section of the Indian Ocean, 2,500km southwest of Perth.

“Here we are, Australia at great cost looking for the aircraft, and Malaysia won’t even cooperate and tell us what was on the aircraft,” he said.

Message of hope ... people in Kuala Lumpur are still praying for MH370.Source:Getty Images

Malaysia Airlines chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya on March 18 revealed the aircraft was carrying “three to four tonnes” of mangosteen.

Four days after that, he also confirmed press reports that the plane was carrying some small lithium-ion batteries but stressed they were transported according to International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) rules.

Professor Middleton said a severe fire caused by lithium-ion batteries would require “gallons of fluid to put it out”, but said if this was the cause of the aircraft’s disappearance it would be unlikely it could have flown all the way to the southern Indian Ocean.

He said he remained unconvinced that the aircraft would be found in the southern hemisphere.

The growing concern comes as US lawmakers on Sunday panned the role played by Malaysian authorities, accusing them of withholding information and bungling the crucial early days of the search.

Rep. Michael McCaul, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, said the Malaysian government squandered the early days of the search looking for the plane in Central Asia when it was likely to be found in the southern Indian Ocean.

“I think the Malaysian government spent way too much time focusing on the northern routes and the Gulf of Thailand and Kazakhstan,” he said on Fox News Sunday.

“It would have been picked up by radar and we knew that.

“And I know satellite imagery given to the Malaysians established that, but we wasted a week of precious time up in that region when all along it’s been in southern Indian Ocean, I think is where the location is.”

Rep. Patrick Meehan said on CNN: “I think across the board people are looking for more in the way of openness from the Malaysian government in terms of sharing the information they have in a timely manner.”

Aviation and safety expert Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger said on CBS News’ Face the Nation that early “missteps” had impaired the search effort.

Still hoping ... a giant message of support in Kuala Lumpur.Source:Getty Images

“Here we are ... into the third week of the investigation and just now beginning to re-narrow the search to areas that are still as large as the United States,” he said.

Captain Sullenberger is famous for safely landing a US Airways Airbus A320 in the middle of New York’s Hudson River after its engines failed following a birdstrike in January 2009.

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